Svema Foto 400 + HC-110 = Thumbs Up

And I’m back with the shots! As I said in the previous post, I took the risk and went for the development times for Rollei Retro 400S to process my Svema Foto 400 rolls in HC-110.

It was a bold move for me, as I’m not a seasoned film expert and all the guestimates are quite hard for me. The suggested time was 6:30 at 20 degrees and the results are right in front of you.

Nikon F3, Svema Foto 400

Nikon F3, Svema Foto 400

Nikon F3, Svema Foto 400

Nikon F3, Svema Foto 400

Nikon F3, Svema Foto 400

Nikon F3, Svema Foto 400

I must say I was pretty sure this wouldn’t ruin the film, the time is not critically long or short, so I expected to get something. The question was if it would be acceptable. Turned out really great in my opinion.

The film, as stated by Leslie Lazenby of FPP, dries flat and feels quite thin, but scanning was smooth without any issues in contrast to Rollei Retro 80S. Some of the photos were underexposed, but I blame the camera for this, as it’s done this already before with Kodak Tri-X. As for the contrast in the most of the pictures, I guess the dev time could be a little shorter, but it’s not over the top and I like the result. Another forum advice for this film-developer combo was to process it for 6 minutes, so maybe it wouldn’t be that contrasty, but anyway.

While searching for the receipt last week, I found an old forum thread where a person had exactly the same situation as mine. That was the thread I found the suggestions in but the funny thing was the direction the discussion took almost immediately. Instead of using the power of the collective mind and experience to help, people started arguing if this Svema film was the genuine stock from the original factory. Pretty soon they were talking about some Russian guys who sell the stock and whether you should buy it and stuff, someone posted pictures of the destroyed factory as proof that this Svema wasn’t the original and so on.

The stock has no indication whatsoever on the film itself, not even a frame number, so it is really a mystery what kind of film it is. And the FPP guys don’t really disclose their sources as far as I know.

But it doesn’t matter! I had fun shooting the film, and I’m pretty happy with the results and this is the most important part.